Freshmen feel the heat back home

LANSFORD, Pa. — Any lawmaker in a swing district can expect to take criticism from his right flank at a town hall meeting. But at an American Veterans outpost tucked deep in the Pocono Mountains this week, freshman Republican Rep. Lou Barletta took heat from every direction — from Democrats angry with the tax cuts in the GOP budget, to conservatives who thought he caved on the last continuing resolution vote, to a precocious 16-year-old critical of the lawmaker’s environmental record.

First Barletta was told “not to be steadfast in Paul Ryan’s Republican plan,” to “bend a little, work and come together to pass something that’s agreeable to everybody.” Moments later, another constituent told him, “I don’t want you to bend; I want you to stand firm” on spending, even if that means a national debt default.

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And hardly anyone in his senior-heavy district wants to see Congress touch their Medicare benefits.

Barletta’s district is one of a handful that Democrats have zeroed in on this spring break: One of 13 that voted for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 but elected a Republican to Congress in 2010. The town halls in Pennsylvania showed deep concern about the national debt but extreme wariness of cuts to entitlements, and constituents are starting to vent their frustrations with the new House GOP majority, bolstered by 87 freshmen, all but one of whom voted for Ryan’s budget plan. Five of the Kerry-Obama districts are in eastern Pennsylvania — and three are represented by freshmen, including Barletta, Rep. Patrick Meehan and Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick.

In his blue collar Scranton-area district — birthplace of Vice President Joe Biden, hometown of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham and represented for the past 26 years by former Rep. Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat — Barletta is trying to strike a balance that stays true to his conservative campaign but is sympathetic to an aging constituency fearful about entitlement reform.

In the middle of Barletta’s presentation on the national debt, a man in the front row interrupted him. “As a senior, did I not pay for these Medicare and Social Security benefits? Didn’t I give Washington my dollars so that as a senior I could live on them?”

Barletta replied “Yes, and it is going to be there. It’s not being touched for any of the senior citizens now, but for my daughter—”